


Welcome in This House

by gloss



Category: Captain America, Truth: Red White and Black
Genre: 1970s, CoC_fest, F/F, chromatic characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We women must begin to unabashedly learn to use the word 'love' for one another."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome in This House

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Morales & Englehart, Stan Lee & Marvel, not me.  
> Notes: G. beta'd and Jube provided the prompt. Thanks to them, and to Kate, for support.  
> Summary from Mary Ann Weathers, [An Argument for Black Women's Liberation as a Revolutionary Force](http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/fun-games2/argument.html), 1969.
> 
> 09-05-2007

Eventually, they came to an arrangement. First, however, they had to meet, several times over. They kept bumping into each other at marches and rallies. Then they took to sitting together, the only dark faces in a sea of pink, at various meetings. Leila took Faith for a bored older lady, looking to get away from gossip and dominoes; being the better person, Faith made no such assumptions about Leila. If she'd been like anyone else, she could have -- too young, too mouthy, altogether too-big-for-her-britches were just the most frequent criticisms tossed Leila's way. 

From sitting together, to shouting down well-intentioned suburban princesses, to taking the IRT home and stopping for coffee in Leila's neighborhood, they grew to know each other better. Leila learned that Faith taught at City College and studied at Columbia; Faith learned that Leila's activist journalism barely put any food in her belly, let alone clothes on her back. Leila realized that behind the myth of the black Captain America, there was a fierce woman supporting her broken man and an ever-growing family, while Faith admitted, without any visible embarrassment, that she believed she'd found an echo of her younger self in Leila. 

Leila corrals the grandbabies and reads to -- more usually, watches TV with -- Isaiah while Faith writes her dissertation. Faith pays her generously, far better than any real domestic. Helping a sister out, Faith calls it. Neither of them wants to think that Leila is a maid. 

Yet nowhere does it say that Leila's got to put with Faith's urge to correct, critique, and flat-out _question_ every little thing Leila does. 

Faith is smart as the day is long. That still gives her no right. 

"If I wanted _mothering_ ," Leila says, taking care not to yell and wake the house, "I'd call South Carolina, wouldn't I?" 

Faith's jaw is never less than taut -- with determination, anger, patience, it doesn't matter. Right now, it looks ready to crack and shatter. When she speaks, she sounds so damn calm, Leila wants to smack something. "Believe me, if I wanted a _daughter_ with deplorable taste in men, I'd --" 

"Look in the next room?" Leila asks, throwing her arm out in the direction of Sarah Gail's little-used bedroom. 

Faith folds her arms across her chest; she looks like she's hugging herself. "Touché." 

Though Faith returned home several hours ago, she hasn't had time to change out of her campus clothes. It's the get-up she calls Non-Threatening Sister Radical -- snug denim trousers, worn huaraches, and a black turtleneck sweater that most women half her age, Leila included, would kill to fill out half as well. 

Faith clears her throat as she rises to her feet. "It's a sad day," she says, using the quiet, deliberate tone that can transfix a crowd, "when Sarah Gail's current man outshines yours." 

"Rafe isn't --" Leila presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. She sees paisleys swirl and explode before she's ready to speak again. It's hard to keep up arguing with Faith, though that shouldn't be the case. Lord knows, the anger and frustration she's feeling are more than sufficient. "Rafe isn't _my_ man." 

"No, he belongs to --" Faith tilts her head, hand on her throat. The delicate lines around her mouth deepen for a moment. "Where _are_ his loyalties this week? He still playing at politics or did he slither back to his gang?" 

Big as this community is, sometimes it feels like Leila's still stuck back in her mama's one-bedroom apartment. Everyone knows everyone else's business and doesn't hesitate to make comments. Nearly so, anyway; no one gossips about Sister Faith. 

"Look, Ms. Bradley, it's getting late..." Knowing she's ducking out rather than staying and standing her ground just makes Leila madder. Her face stings and a headache threatens behind her eyes. She yanks on the lambskin jacket Rafe gave her as a make-nice present last weekend. 

She fumbles with tingling fingers to turn up the collar when Faith touches her hand. 

"Stay," Faith says. 

"Stop bringing Rafe down, then." 

Faith's smile is slow; her mouth is full, and knowing, and Leila can't contain her shiver. "You know I can't promise that." 

"He's a good man --" 

"He is not, and don't lie to me." Faith eases the jacket off Leila's shoulders and cups her neck, thumb moving slow and gentle across the base of her throat. 

Leila gives her arm a perfunctory shake. "He's good at what matters, how's that?" 

That ought to do it. Most brothers call Faith 'Sister Faith', and it's not political; in their eyes, she's like a celibate nun. Even some sisters express amazement at just how long she's gone without. 

No one, ever, suggests that she should step out on Isaiah. Let alone that she ever has. 

"Is he now?" Faith lets Leila's arm drop; Leila reaches to take hold again. "Righteous between your legs, that how it goes?" 

Leila's grip falters, then firms around Faith's wrist. For such an imposing -- _irritating_ \-- woman, she's built delicate as a bird. 

She can't get used to Faith talking like this. That smart mouth and sharp, piercing gaze, they're better used for addressing crowds and rallying marchers, even teaching undergraduates. Better used for _the better_ , not for the crude and personal, not for where Leila lives. 

For all her passionate politics and vehement intelligence, Faith's still a _lady_ , a woman of another generation. Leila used to enjoy taunting her with crudities. 

That was before Faith started replying in kind. Before she took liberties with their closeness. 

"You better believe it," Leila says hoarsely and moves closer. She presses up against Faith's side, mouth a hairsbreadth over her neck, and inhales the warmth off Faith's skin. 

Leila had welcomed those liberties of Faith's. She introduced several of her own. 

"And that's..." Faith trails off. She rarely loses her train of thought; even less frequently does she fumble for words. But Leila's got one arm looped around her waist, and, Leila -- Leila knows what she's doing. Faith squares her shoulders. When she takes a deep breath, her breast pushes against Leila's arm, sends out another wave of shivers. "That's all that matters to you?" 

We can't all be saints, Leila wants to say. Instead, she tips back her head and feels Faith's fingers brush her scalp. "Right now?" 

Faith nods, her cheek brushing against Leila's lips. 

She speaks into Faith's ear, feeling Faith turn toward her, wrapping her arms around Faith's waist. "Right now, I wouldn't care about Rafe Michel if I found him licking Bob Haldeman's little pink dick." 

Faith chuckles and looks up, eyes bright through her heavy lashes. She's a womanist, sure, but, like Leila herself, she can't seem to give up her mascara and kohl. Her hand on Leila's neck feels -- on account of the excitement and anticipation twinkling, then _surging_ , through her -- just as strong as Isaiah's. Maybe stronger. 

"You'll stay?" Faith asks. Softly, though it can't be fear of being overheard that keeps her voice barely above a whisper. 

Nodding, Leila presses her face into the curve of Faith's neck, breathing out the last of her anger into the soft wool, as she cups the flexing angles of Faith's shoulderblades. 

Leila didn't start this. Nor did Faith. _This_ , all soft lips and sharp teeth, kisses that suck the gravity right out her soles and the graceful, birdwing-fast movements that float them back to the chesterfield, all this just happened. 

And then it kept happening, whether they argued or simply shared a late-night cup of Sanka, whether they were here in the Bradleys' apartment on the Grand Concourse or stuck downtown after missing the express bus. 

Faith's body is taut, skin burnished by age and soft to the touch. She shivers when Leila licks at the stretch marks that run like maple-syrup threads across her belly and up the underside of her breasts. She grabs at the back of Leila's natural, holds on, hips pumping, and comes with a fist in her mouth that can't block every whimper. When they roll across the plastic-coated couch, Leila's earrings strike Faith's cheek, and Faith isn't so small, not any longer. Not when she's got her face between Leila's breasts and hand up her skirt, heading home, never missing. 

Leila can feel the world changing around them, and she's young enough to throw herself headlong into the struggle. Faith -- Faith's _different_ , and smarter than a whole Ivy League. There must be a reason why she's doing this. 

Why?, Leila could ask; Faith would tell her. Why me, why this? Why **you**?

Leila's pride won't let her ask. You don't ask questions you don't want the answers to. 

Faith's intelligence, however, can't be quieted. She spreads her small, thin fingers, cuticles spattered with ink and correcting fluid, over Leila's left breast. Her thumb curves around the nipple like punctuation. 

"You gave me your heart, girl," she whispers. The kiss flowers from there into another language, one they speak just as fluently. "I'm taking care of it, best I can." 

Leila _is_ bigger than Faith, gangly even now in the sticky-warm dark, and she holds on tight. In her arms, Faith's breath comes hot and regular against Leila's shoulder, easing toward sleep. 

With her breath held, Leila traces the shell of Faith's ear, follows her hairline up to her temple. She's brash and foolhardy, like everyone from Sam Wilson to her mother makes no bones about saying, but she's not _stupid_. She waits until Faith's asleep to reply. 

"Love you, too," she says without opening her mouth. 

She'll wake Faith soon enough; the lady needs her rest. 

  
  



End file.
